According To The President Of Taylor Swift’s Label, Kanye Really Did Make Her (More) Famous

A 2010 quote suggests her team might agree with Kanye’s controversial claim.

There are many layers to unpack from the first verse of Kanye West’s “Famous”—the suggestion that Taylor Swift owes him sex, the use of the word “bitch"—but they all hinge on one question: Did Kanye really make Taylor famous? Scott Borchetta, the president of Swift’s Big Machine label, once seemed to believe he played a part.

A year after the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, in which Kanye infamously interrupted Taylor’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video Award to insist that Beyoncé deserved the honor instead, The Wall Street Journal examined the impact the incident had on the starlet’s career. In a 2010 article titled “Did The Kanye West Incident Help Taylor Swift’s Career?” Borchetta acknowledges the boost Yeezy gave his flagship artist’s career:

“The Kanye incident brought attention to Taylor, to an audience that did not really know her or her music. And when they did check it out, they discovered that they really liked it.”

While Taylor two-stepped around talking about the incident in this same piece, she got her feelings across following the release of “Famous” via a slyly veiled response to Kanye at the 2016 Grammys, as she accepted Album of the Year honors.

“As the first woman to win Album of the Year at the Grammys twice, I want to say to the young woman out there, there are going to be people along the way who try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame,” she said. “But if you just focus on the work and you don’t let those people sidetrack you, someday when you get where you’re going, you will look around and you will know it was you and the people who love you who put you there.”

While it’s impossible to quantify the exact effect of Kanye’s stage crashing, Taylor’s ‘08 album Fearless went on to become the best-selling album of 2009, moving more than 3.2 million copies. It sold 7 million overall in the U.S., 2 million more than her self-titled debut album, which dropped in 2006.

She’s since dated fellow stars like Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer, Harry Styles, and Calvin Harris and tried her hand at pop music with 2012’s Red. But thanks to the 2009 VMAs and current “Famous” controversy, Kanye West will likely remain a key figure in the Taylor Swift narrative.